Are charters public schools or are they businesses? The charter lobby wants a slice of the $2 trillion intended to save small businesses even though the charters have suffered no loss of funding during the pandemic.
Many businesses are nearly bankrupt. This money was meant for them, not charters and their lobbyists.
Please sign this petition to Congress.
PLAINTIFFS ASK TENNESSEE COURT TO HALT UNCONSTITUTIONAL VOUCHER PROGRAM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Ashley Levett, SPLC, ashley.levett@splcenter.org / 334-296-0084
Sharon Krengel, ELC, skrengel@edlawcenter.org / 973-624-1815, x 24
Lindsay Kee, ACLU-TN, communications@aclu-tn.org / 615-320-7142
Christopher Wood, Robbins Geller, cwood@rgrdlaw.com / 615- 244-2203
TENNESSEE – Parents and community members in Shelby and Davidson Counties who are challenging the constitutionality of the Tennessee Education Savings Account (ESA) voucher law filed a motion Friday asking the Chancery Court for Davidson County to halt implementation of the program before the state begins diverting taxpayer funds to private schools.
The motion asks the court to stop implementation of the law — which applies only to students living in those counties — that would illegally siphon much-needed taxpayer funds away from their public schools.
Although Tennessee’s voucher program was originally slated to begin in the 2021-2022 school year, Governor Bill Lee’s administration has rushed to distribute private school vouchers in the fall of 2020, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which caused hundreds of millions to be slashed from education funding in the emergency budget passed by the state legislature in March.
Shelby County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools were already underfunded before the COVID-19 pandemic. The current crisis will only increase the need for funding and resources in these schools.
“Schools throughout Tennessee have been chronically underfunded for years. Diverting money to pay for private school vouchers in Shelby County and Nashville is not going to solve this problem, and will only exacerbate the challenges these districts face to provide all students with a quality education,” said Chris Wood, partner at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, which has joined with the ACLU of Tennessee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Education Law Center to represent the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center collaborate on the national Public Funds Public Schools campaign.
The lawsuit challenging the ESA voucher program, McEwen v. Lee, was filed last month. It charges that the law violates several provisions of the state’s constitution and laws.
The temporary injunction motion filed Friday asserts that the voucher program violates the Tennessee Constitution’s “Home Rule” provision, which prohibits the General Assembly from passing laws that apply only to certain counties. In this case, the voucher program will be instituted only in Shelby and Davidson counties. Because the legislature failed to appropriate funding for the first year of the law’s implementation, yet paid over $1 million to a private company for its administration using funds from an unrelated program, the voucher law also violates constitutional and statutory requirements governing appropriation of public money.
# # #
The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, visit http://www.splcenter.org/.
Founded in 1973, Education Law Center is a national leader in advancing the rights of public school students to equal educational opportunity under state and federal law through litigation, policy, advocacy and research. For more information, visit http://www.edlawcenter.org/.
The ACLU of Tennessee, the state affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union, is a private, non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization dedicated to defending and advancing civil liberties and civil rights through advocacy, coalition-building, litigation, legislative lobbying, community mobilization and public education. For more information, visit http://www.aclu-tn.org/.
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP is one of the world’s leading complex litigation firms representing plaintiffs in securities fraud, antitrust, corporate mergers and acquisitions, consumer and insurance fraud, multi-district litigation, and whistleblower protection cases. With 200 lawyers in 9 offices, Robbins Geller has obtained many of the largest securities, antitrust, and consumer class action recoveries in history, recovering tens of billions of dollars for victims of fraud and corporate wrongdoing. Robbins Geller attorneys are consistently recognized by courts, professional organizations and the media as leading lawyers in their fields of practice. Visit http://www.rgrdlaw.com/.
Civil rights attorney Wendy Lecker writes a regular column in the Stamford (CT) Advocate.
In this post, she points out that the pandemic has demonstrated how important public schools are in their communities.
As states closed public school systems, the nation at large saw the wide range of necessary services schools provide to students in addition to instruction. Public schools, serving 50 million students, also provide meals, health and social support essential to child welfare and development. School districts are now attempting to deliver instruction from a distance, but also to maintain the vital personal connection teachers and other staff provide, especially to their most vulnerable students. Teachers read bedtime stories online, tutor students from outside the students’ front doors and drive by students’ homes to check in. Counselors make themselves available through any electronic means possible.
That schools play a central role in the lives of children, families and communities should not be a revelation. In a country with a porous safety net, schools are often the only public community institution where children’s needs are served. Children must mitigate hunger, trauma and other life challenges in order to learn and thrive.
Question: Will legislatures remember and protect their public schools when the pandemic is over and give them the funding they need?
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, expresses outrage because the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has asked for federal rescue money for charter schools, although they have suffered no losses.
She writes:
Shame on the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools!
I have great sympathy for small businesses that are devastated by COVID-19. And I am glad that the Small Business Administration is giving those businesses low-interest loans to cushion the blow. It is shocking, therefore, that the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools is actively encouraging its members to take advantage of those taxpayer funds intended for small businesses, although their income has not been interrupted at all.
Read below what the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools included in its weekly newsletter:
“SBA Emergency Loans Now Available to Charter Schools
“The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) now has authority to offer emergency loans to both small businesses and nonprofits under its Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program in eligible areas. While SBA authorities are focused on small businesses, we worked with federal lawmakers to ensure that the loan funding for this crisis is offered to charter schools and other nonprofits to borrow up to $2 million for up to 30 years at 2.75 percent for nonprofits. These loans are designed to help businesses and nonprofits meet financial obligations and operating expenses that would not be of concern if the COVID disaster had not occurred.”
By the way, some of these loans will not need to be repaid.
Are charter schools following Executive Director Nina Rees’s (former employee of Dick Cheney) advice?
Yes, they are.
Read this story that just appeared in the Washington Post.
According to reporter Perry Stein, even though D.C. charter schools, like public schools, get most of their funding from the government, they can apply for funds under the CARES Act. Yet, public schools cannot.
”Charters claim they need the money because they have to give out laptops to their students. So do public schools. Charters claim they may lose donations. It is doubtful that the billionaires who give them money will stop. When crises occur, billionaires do just fine.
”Once again, the charter sector, through the lobbying efforts of Nina Rees of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, worked behind the scenes to gain fiscal advantage for the privately operated schools they claim are public schools.
”This time Rees did it during a crisis of enormous proportions–one that is devasting the small business community for which so many charter and public school parents work.”
Will the National Alliance, which is flush with cash, also apply for these funds? We will do our best to find out. Although our donations have decreased, the Network for Public Education will not apply for these funds. In fact, we are actively asking our members to donate to organizations that are providing crisis relief.
Charters claim to be public schools–except when being a “business” is to their advantage.
Charters claim to be “public schools” when that’s where the money is. But when the money is available for small businesses, they claim to be small businesses. Public schools aren’t eligible for the federal money. But charter schools are.
Public schools are not small businesses. Charters just defined themselves: Not public schools. Small businesses.
Leonie Haimson conducts a weekly program on public radio station WBAI in New York City.
In this episode, she interviews Randi W. about the coronavirus crisis, the threat of budget cuts, and problems with distance learning.
Gene V. Glass is one of the nation’s most eminent researchers and statisticians of education. He is a professor emeritus at Arizona State University.
He writes:
Education Policy Analysis Archives is an open access (free to read) peer-reviewed journal now in its 28th year of continuous publication.
EPAA just published an article by David S. Knight (Univ. Washington) and Laurence A. Toenjes (Univ Houston) entitled “Do Charter Schools Receive Their Fair Share of Funding? School Finance Equity for Charter and Traditional Public Schools.”
The charter school industry constantly complains that states underfund them. They lobby legislatures asking for funding equal to the per pupil expenditure of the traditional public schools. No matter that they offer fewer services than their public school counterparts, or that they rake off far higher funds for administration than public schools. (I make no apologies for ignoring the legality that charter schools are also public schools, because so many of them attempt to operate like private schools by discouraging applications for some types of student and by projecting the image that they are private schools.)
Knight and Toenjes’s conclusion will not be welcomed by the charter industry: “Using detailed school finance data from Texas as a case study, we find that after accounting for differences in accounting structures and cost factors, charter schools receive significantly more state and local funding compared to traditional public schools with similar structural characteristics and student demographics. … Policy simulations demonstrate that on average, each student who transfers to a charter school increases the cost to the state by $1,500.”
The complete article can be downloaded at https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/4438
Gene V Glass
http://gvglass.info
This interview on KPCC-NPR in Southern California by Larry Mantle was conducted a few days ago.
Mantle made it clear–at least to me–that he favors charter schools, so I was constantly asked to defend my criticism of them. I later learned that Los Angelenos know Mantle as a charter champion. One of the hypothetical questions are posed was “what would be wrong with a district that was half public schools, half charter schools?” Another time, he praised Eli Broad and wondered why I didn’t regard him as a generous philanthropist. You get the drift.
When the callers were put on the air, all of them were charter parents who challenged me.
There were no questions or comments from public school parents.
The parents who called in do not believe that charters divert funding from public schools, where most of the state’s children are. I suggested that they google Gordon Lafer’s study, “The Breaking Point,” which documents the many millions that three California districts lose to charters. I also suggested that California has been underinvesting in its schools for many years and is now below the national average.
I think every parent has the right to make the choice they think is in the best interest of their child, but I think every policymaker is responsible to improve and prioritize the public schools that enroll 85-90% of all American children.
In AIRTALK’s tweet about the show, which appeared pretty quickly on March 11, the show’s tweet says that I consider the 2010s to be “banner years” for public schools. This is ridiculous. Whoever wrote that line obviously did not read the book. The 2010s were a time of budget cuts, teacher shortages, the combined negative effects of NCLB and Race to the Top, VAM, Common Core, and worship of mandated standardized testing. It was a horrible decade for schools, with the only bright spot being the rise of the #Red4Ed movement in 2018. I am assuming that no one at AIRTALK read the book. The topic of conversation was: How dare you dare to question the need for and value of charter schools?
The show takes about 20 minutes. Listen and tell me what you think.
This decision was announced on March 11:
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Court of Appeal:
Nonprofit Chartered Schools Are Not Exempt From County Property Taxes, Assessments
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday affirmed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Monica Bachner’s determination that a nonprofit charter school is not impliedly exempt, under the California Constitution, from payment of property taxes and special assessments.
The plaintiffs—Los Angeles Leadership Academy, Inc., which operates schools in Lincoln Heights, and two nonprofit public benefit corporations that own the land—brought suit for refunds and declaratory relief, contending that their schools, like public schools, should not be taxed.
Justice Elizabeth Grimes of Div. Eight wrote the opinion affirming Bachner’s judgment in favor Los Angeles County Assessor Jeffrey Prang and others.
Public Schools’ Exemption
Public schools are expressly exempt, under the state Constitution, from paying taxes and, it has been held, are impliedly exempt from paying special assessments, Grimes recited.
She wrote:
“We find no support in statutory or case law for plaintiffs’ implied exemption claim. Plaintiffs cannot establish that charter schools are public entities for purposes of exemption from taxation. Plaintiffs’ policy arguments to the contrary—that charter schools should be treated like public entities because monies taken for taxes and special assessments reduce monies available for educating students, and put charter schools at a competitive disadvantage with other public schools—are properly addressed to the Legislature, not to this court.”
Grimes noted that in the 2006 case of Wells v. One2One Learning Foundation, the California Supreme Court held, in an opinion by then-Justice Marvin Baxter, that while charter schools are “part of the public school system” for some purposes, they are not entitled to governmental tort immunity.
Legislative Specification
The Legislature has specified the circumstances under which chartered schools are a part of the public school system, Grimes said, pointing out:
“Notably absent is any suggestion that charters schools are to be treated like school districts for taxation purposes.”
The case is Los Angeles Leadership Academy v. Prang, B292613.
Thomas R. Freeman, A. Howard Matz, Hernan D. Vera and Fanxi Wang Bird of Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks, Lincenberg & Rhow, represented the plaintiffs. Joel N. Klevens of Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro joined with Los Angeles Deputy County Counsels Nicole Davis Tinkham and Justin Y. Kim in arguing for the assessor.
Copyright 2020, Metropolitan News Company
The IDEA charter chain has received hundreds of millions in federal funding to expand. It has garnered a lot of attention, however, for its caviar tastes. The IDEA board approved a management proposal to lease a private jet for nearly $2 million a year, for the convenience of its executives. Not like your average school board or superintendent!
But their luxury tastes have not been curbed by the negative reaction private jet problem.
Among other big-ticket items noted in this story, here is a notable one. IDEA CEO Tom Torkelson flew to a private meeting with Betsy DeVos in Florida, in a nine-passenger jet in which he was the only passenger. DeVos has given IDEA more than $200 million from the federal Charter Schools Program. She loves IDEA.
The Texas Monitor reports:
Last October, the CEO and president of the largest charter school company in Texas took a trip to Houston. They didn’t travel the way most public-school employees would have. Instead, they traveled by private jet, their spouses and five children came along for the trip, and they got around Houston not by Uber or rent car, but in a chauffeured SUV.
That trip was just one item in an $800,000 bill that IDEA Public Schools racked up between 2017 and 2019 on private jets and other luxe travel spending. Although IDEA received $319 million from the State of Texas and $71 million in federal money in 2018, this kind of travel would be illegal for public school district and state employees in Texas. Traditional public-school supporters and charter school advocates alike say it’s the kind of spending that gives a black eye to the charter school concept.
Charter schools receive no property tax revenue, as traditional public schools do, but are funded through state and federal grants. Like other public schools, they can also raise money from private donors. IDEA says it uses some of that private money for its luxury travel.
Records show that company CEO Tom Torkelson, his wife and three children, along with IDEA President JoAnn Gama, her husband and two children, stepped off a private jet at Sugar Land Regional Airport and jumped into the chauffeured SUV. The reason for the trip, records show, was to “visit Houston school sites.”
The flight cost is not noted in the records, nor is the reason for the spouses and children coming along on the trip. The vehicle, rented from Casablanca Limousines in Houston, cost $1,800.
At about the time of the Houston trip, IDEA was preparing to lease a private jet – the same plane that the district had used on an individual trip basis since at least 2014. But board members nixed the lease after the deal became public.
In December 2019, IDEA announced the plane lease had been put aside.
In March, Torkelson proclaimed that “IDEA will not pay for private air travel” any longer.
Four days later, IDEA released the district’s transportation records to Peyton Wolcott, a Texas-based education advocate who had submitted a request for the documents in January.
She questioned the timing and the sincerity of Torkelson’s vow to end the subsidized travel.
“Why shouldn’t IDEA’s board and executives, who enjoyed Texas taxpayers’ largesse, dig deep into their pockets and pay it back? “she said. Records show IDEA has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private-plane travel in the past five years.
Flights by Torkelson and IDEA staffers inside Texas between 2017 and 2019 cost, on average, about $1,300 per one-way trip, with a discount for round-trip fares. For example, a private, round-trip flight taken by Torkelson in fall 2018 from McAllen to San Antonio ran $2,340. A commercial flight on United Airlines today would cost $377 for the same route. Bills for private flights can also include lodging and meals for pilots as well as other costs. See a sample invoice here.
Torkelson took a private jet to Tampa in November to meet with U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to discuss “education philanthropy,” records show. He was the only passenger on the jet, which holds nine people.
I mean, really, do you expect such powerful people to fly economy like a public school employee?
IDEA promises that 100% of its students who graduate will enroll in a four-year college. What they don’t point out is that students are not allowed to graduate unless they have been accepted by a four-year college. And, yes, there are colleges that accept every applicant.
Nonetheless, Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic hopes that IDEA and KIPP will open in Arizona. Arizona has the most lax charter oversight in the nation. It’s the only state that allows for-profit operators of charters (many other states ban for-profit charters, but allow for-profit management, as in Michigan, where 80% of all charters are run by for-profit EMOs). It’s hard to judge whether Arizona or California has had the most charter scandals, but Arizona has had some big ones, where charter operators have made off with millions of dollars, and it was all legal.
There is the grand success of former legislator Eddie Farnsworth, who pocketed up to $30 million by turning his for-profit chain into a nonprofit chain.
Then there was Glen Way, who made millions building his charter schools.
Michael and Olga Block founded the BASIS charter chain in Arizona, whose demographics are skewed white and Asian, get very high test scores, but take home enough to buy a NYC condo for $8.4 million.
No one has accused KIPP or IDEA of fraud, so maybe Arizona needs them, that is, if you think itis a good idea to continue stripping students and resources from public schools.
Bill Phillis is a retired state official in Ohio. As founder of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy, he follows the money. And he finds that nearly $15 billion has been diverted from public schools to charters and vouchers.
Educational opportunities lost in public school districts due to the state’s confiscation of $14,673,524,789 for the charter and voucher whims
Traditional public school students have been denied massive educational opportunities by the state’s confiscation of $14.7 billion from school districts. Much of the $14.7 billion has been wasted; hence, all students are being shortchanged.
The state’s constitutional responsibility is to secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools. Instead of fixing the system as directed by the Ohio Supreme Court, the state has frittered away $14.7 billion of school district funds.
Diane Ravitch's blog 